Busy Busy Busy

Christmas time seems to be the busiest time of the year for me. I flies by, but I never feel like I get everything done. I'm enjoying being off of school, but I still have so much to do. I'm trying to get some holiday baking done, but I hate baking in our little oven. I don't feel like it bakes anything right and it takes forever because it is such a small oven. Then there is the Christmas cards. I was trying to be well prepared and get them out during the holiday season, but I'm not sure it will happen. I had the cards bought and our Christmas letter written, but putting the two together just takes so much time :) I now have the pictures in the card and the letter typed up, all I need to do is print the letters, sign them, and address the cards. Hopefully I will have them in the mail by Friday. Now, thank you cards are a different story. I haven't even started on my Virginia thank you cards. What is wrong with me!!! I feel like I am such a horrible person. I want to thank everyone but it just takes so long. I don't have a whole lot to write in the cards, but I have so many to do. I know I should just ask my husband to help, but I know he'll say no. He didn't want to register for anything in the first place. I'll get them done it's just going to take a while. I'll be off of work for Christmas break soon so I'll try to get them all done during that time. I still have a bunch of Christmas shopping to do and I only have 7 days left before Christmas. I'm almost finished with my husband's gifts but the rest of my family is up in the air. I have no idea what we are getting my father, Rod's brother and sister-in-law, or Rod's aunt. I know what we are doing for my mom and my brother but I'm not done with the gifts yet. We have already finsihed my sister and brother-in-laws gift.

This past weekend we went down to North Carolina to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and Birthdays with Rod's family. Unfortunately I was sick, but we still had a great time. On Friday we got there and we went to lunch at Jason's Deli. That place so awesome and I wish we had one around our area. On Friday night we had pizza for dinner, watched the Appalachian State win their 3rd straight championship, and made homemade stuffing. On Saturday we got ready for our belated Thanksgiving celebration. In the afternoon we celebrated Thanksgiving and a little bit of christmas with Rod's mom, aunt, brother, sister-in-law, uncle, aunt, and cousin. It was pretty fun. Then on Sunday we went to brunch and then drove home. All-in-all it was a very fun weekend.

This weekend I'm going to finish Christmas shopping, go to lunch with some friends, then go to a party at my parents house. On Monday we are going to brunch with Rod's aunt, brother, and sister-in-law to celebrate Christmas. Then we'll spend Christmas eve and Christmas with my family. I can't wait to see my sister because she is going to be home. I'm really excited to spend time with my family :) Anyway, I better go and order some more Christmas gifts. Hopefully I'll write here again before Christmas and if not I'll write about what I got for Christmas :)

Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving. It is a time I get to spend eating and having fun with my family and friends. I also enjoy being off of work and school. I have started a new journal for myself called a gratitude journal. The whole point of it is to write 5 things you are thankful for during that day. Although I would like to do it every night, I do not always get the chance. I thought that this blog could be mainly about things I am thankful for. I am thankful for my wonderful husband and family. Rod takes really good care of me, our house, and our cats. When I get home after being gone at work and school I am exhausted. He cleans the house, does the laundry, does the dishes, and makes me dinner. What an awesome husband! I couldn't ask for anything more. My family is such a huge support to me as well. No matter what I need, they are always there to help. I enjoy living close to my parents and brother. I get to spend a lot of time with them! I am thankful for all of my friends. They are amazing and I couldn't ask for better friends. My coworkers and classmates are wonderful as well. I really do have a wonderful life even though I get really stressed out some times. I however am not thankful that my cell phone decided to break last night. I know there used to be a time in our lives without cell phones. I am old enough to remember, but now it is like my life line. I don't memorize peoples numbers and unfortunately I do not back the numbers up somewhere other than my phone. So I believe I have now lost all the numbers of the people who were in my phone. I do not know if Verizon Wireless can fix it, but I doubt it. I have had so many problems with this phone it is unbelievable and those people don't seem to be able to fix anything when I have the problems. I'm afraid I am going to either need to switch my phone over to an old one of my parents' or buy a new one. Unfortunately this has all happened 3 months prior to being able to get a new every 2 phone because we will be able to get credit toward buying a phone in 3 months. I am going to try and make do with old phones because I would very much prefer a free phone over buying a new phone. Uhh...this is just my life. I will try an be thankful the next few days, but this does frustrate me to no end, especially since the phone was working yesterday afternoon. I hope everyone has a safe and fun Thanksgiving and if you need to get a hold of my, call me at my parents' house or on my husband's cell phone. Also send me your phone number so I can put it into the phone I switch to!

Wow, time flies!!! The Honeymoon Story (Finally)

SO obviously putting the honeymoon story up took a lot longer than I thought. I have been so insanely busy trying to go to school, work, be a good wife (not succeeding on this) and get thank you cards written (not succeeding on this either). So here it goes....the honeymoon story:

We flew to San Francisco at about noon on Monday. Once we got there, we headed to our hotel. We took the BART train because it was much cheaper than paying for a cab. We checked into the hotel then we decided to find a place to buy tickets for the trolley and street cars. We found them and we bought a City Pass which was 7 days on the trains and 6 different tickets for admission, plus other coupons. That night we went down to the water and walked around. We tried to get Alcatraz tickets but they were all sold out the entire week. We then headed to Ghirardelli Square. When we got there we decided to find a place to eat dinner before we had a Ghirardelli ice cream sundae. We walked up to the next street and we found this little hole in the wall pizza place. The pizza was delicious! Then we bought some stuff from the Ghirardelli store and bought and ice cream sundae to share - AMAZING!!! Then we headed back to the hotel. The next day we called the concierge and asked if they had tickets to Alcatraz. They said we could go wait in line for standby so if some people didn't show up we could get on the boat. So we headed down to the Wharf early and asked if they had a standby line and they said they didn't do that. We were like ok. So we ended up walking around and going to a Farmer's Market. Then we walked to China Town. We had so much fun at China Town. They have tons and tons of shops. We bought a sake set, some chopsticks, and these cute bowls for our apartment. We also bought a gift for my grandmother. We had lunch in China Town. Now that it has been 3 months, I can't remember everything we did during each day. We spent most of our days out of the hotel though. We went on a cruise of the bay, we went to several art museums, we went to a flower garden, two different aquariums, and a science and math center. We mostly ate and little restaurants in the area. I loved eating at Boudin's and wish they had places here because I love their sourdough bread. We got to take a tour of the Boudin bakery and it was really neat. We actually went back a second time because we realized we had free tickets in our packet after we had paid to go in the first time. All in all we had a great time. Out hotel room was nice...Thanks Dad and we were on the concierge floor so we had breakfast every morning, free drinks all day long, and they had appetizers and dessert in the evening. I definitely want to go back! I want to go to Alcatraz, walk around more, go back to China Town, go on a Trolley Car and other things. I hope that Rod and I can get back there again soon. I think he had a great time as well. By the end of the trip my feet were killing me, but I wouldn't have changed it for the world. When went back to LA on Friday. On Saturday early morning, we left for Arizona. My mom and my sister went with us. We went to visit Rod's mom's house. We had a great time there. We went to some great restaurants, hung out in the pool, and went to Taliesin West which is a Frank Lloyd Wright house. That was awesome! At one point our guide talked about Wayfarers Chapel where we got married at the week before so everyone clapped for us. We had so much fun visiting Rod's mom. I love spending time with her and seeing her puppies :) After a few days, we went back to CA. Then Rod headed home and I stayed for a week and a half longer. I stayed to go to my grandparents' timeshare. This was the first year without my grandfather. It was actually ok. It was really nice because most of the week it was just my mom, my grandmother, and I. It was very relaxing and fun. Our next door neighbors' daughters, both of them, had just had babies so the new babies were at the beach too. We had a great time. I was not ready to come home when we did. Then we came back to VA for our VA reception. My grandmother flew back with us. She was such a big help leading up to the reception. The night before, Rod's mom, aunt, and my grandmother were such big helps trying to get everything ready. The day of the reception was beautiful. It was 80 degrees outside with a slight breeze. It was the best day of the week. We had a great time at the reception. It was nice to see everyone and celebrate. Rod's mom got to meet some of the people he works with and lots of our friends and family came to celebrate. Rod's grandmother, great aunt, uncle and aunt and cousin came to the reception. Some of them we hadn't seen in years. On Sunday we hung out with Rod's family. After all the wedding stuff was over, my grandmother stayed for a few more days. Then she headed home. Then life went back to normal for us. I went back to school and work.

Now life is so busy. I work full time, go to school, try to get to some professional development seminars when I can, try to be a good wife (however my clean skills have not improved and I never feel like doing it even though I know it frustrates Rod and I at how disgusting our apartment looks because of me), try to spend time with my family and friends, and TRY to finish thank you cards. I finally finished the California thank you cards at about 3 months. I haven't even begun to start on the Virginia thank you cards. This is my big project for the next few weeks. I really need to get them done so they aren't looming over my head. This is my life right now. I'm just extremely busy :) Hope all is well with everyone else!!!

The Wedding Story

I can't believe I haven't blogged in so long. I really wish I had blogged my feelings leading up to the wedding, but I wasn't about to sit on a dial up computer and write. So, I'm not sure where to start, so I guess I'll start at flying out to CA a little more than 3 weeks before the wedding. I left Rod at home and I headed out to CA with my mom. We had 4 huge suitcases plus we carried my dress on the plane. Luckily we flew on a 777 and it was summer so none of the first class passengers had coats so the flight attendants hung my dress up in a coat closet right by the door. I was so worried about it before we got on the plane, but once we got on I could relax. The flight was fine and we got in really late. My aunt came to pick me up and my mother rented a car and spent the night with my father. It's a good thing my mom wasn't planning on going with us because our luggage barely fit in my aunt's car. The next two weeks in CA seem like a wirlwind. We took my dress to a seamstress to have a corset back put into it. We went into LA to buy satin for the back of my dress and while we were going for that we decided to look at the flower market to see what type of flowers we would want for our bouquets. If you have never been to the LA flower mart and you are in LA you should definitely go. It is so awesome. It has so many flowers to pick from and they smell amazing. They even had blue roses :) We decided to use blue roses in my bouquet. For the 4th of July, we went down to one of my Aunt Tricia and Uncle Bob's house. We stayed two nights and had a great time. Basically we spent the two weeks relaxing, going to the beach, spending time with family, and running little errands. Rod came into town on July 14th and then my sister flew in on the 15th. Rod and I went to get our marriage license on the 16th and then met some of our friends for lunch. Then on Tuesday I can't remember what we did. Wednesday a lot of our friends flew into town. We went into Los Angeles. There were two cars that went and we had a great time. Unfortunately one of my grandmother's car broke down. I was driving it for awhile and the battery light came on and I didn't feel like driving it so my mom drove it. It started to die and my friend Stephen was driving the other car and he was trying to look on his GPS system for a repair shop, but luckily we found one on the right side. We pulled in and my mom pulled in with the guys in her car and it died right in the parking lot. The people were so nice and dropped everything to work on my grandmother's car. Luckily we broke down a block from the Grove and Farmer's market which is where we were headed. We walked over there to get some food. Then Stephen took the girls back because my bachelorette party was that night. The guys stayed with my mom to wait for the car to be fixed. We barely beat them home because Stephen took us this back way by a crazy house that had not 1 but 18 David statues on their front lawn plus 1 of a naked lady and several huge lion heads. Then we got lost on our way home and ended up on a highway we didn't want to be on and got off in Compton which is a really bad area. Stephen was so funny because he told us to "stop acting white" and "if you see a bullet duck". All in all it was a great day. Then my bachelorette party was crazy. The games were so embarassing but hilarious. Thursday was an extremely busy day. My mom, sister, mother-in-law and aunt got up very early in the morning to go pick out our flowers. We bought a blue hydrangea plant, a white hydrangea plant, blue roses, purple cala lilies, stephanotis, purple roses, purple gladiolus, whiteish pink roses, and a white assortment of flowers. When we got we went to pick up tuxes. Unfortunately there was a problem with 3 of the 7 tuxes we had. If I had to do it over again I definitely would not go with AfterHours. Anyway after the tux problems we headed to lunch. Then Rod and I went to meet the minister at the chapel. After that we went back to relax. At 6 was our rehearsal. Then we headed to the rehearsal dinner. Rehearsal dinner was great. The food was awesome and we had about 50 people there. After dinner we headed back to my grandmother's house for dessert and coffee. My mom made us this cute car cake because our monogram is C A R. Friday was a really busy day. Unfortunately Rod decided to hang out with his friends all day but that's ok. My mom made ALL of the bouquets, coursages and boutonnieres and they were amazing. My mom's friend Ms. Patti and my grandmother were a great help. My friends and I worked on our fan programs. We had to finish cutting them out and then we had to put them together. We also got our nails done. Some of the guys went back to get the fixed tuxes. Unfortunately the tuxes were not fixed when they were supposed to. One of our grooms tuxes was never fixed correctly. That is why I would NEVER EVER EVER use AfterHours again. The tux situation was the only thing that made me really angry the whole week! After I got the frustration out I was able to be more productive. That night, my family helped me to finish this screen with pictures on it while my friends helped my mom do the place cards. Thank God for all of my friends and family who were there to help me with every little detail because without them I wouldn't have been able to pull it off. The Wedding Day was pretty good. I spent the night with my friends and my sister. We got up really early and headed to my grandmother's house. When we got there, we realized that the night before we had done the screen backward so my dad and mom quickly changed it. The bridesmaids were curling each others hair while I was getting my hair done. My aunt did a fantastic job on my hair and all the girls hair. She curled and pinned mine up and she pinned my bridesmaids and matron of honor's hair in part up part down. We were running late, but Stephen (our chauffeur for the day) picked my mom, my sister and I up. We headed to the chapel with the bouquets, coursages and boutonnieres. My grandmother and the other bridemaids came with my dress and shoes and their dresses. When we got there we signed all the stuff then the wedding planner asked me for the long stemmed roses for our mothers. I had forgotten them. I forgot that I needed them because it didn't make it on my list of things to do with my mother. I went crying to my dad and he was able to call my Aunt Lynn and she made a trip to the store for us to get us 2 longstemmed roses. I was so greatful to her for doing that. Then we took tons of pictures. It was a little overcast, but the photographer said that was great for pictures. The wedding was awesome! It was so beautiful and I was so happy. It wasn't too hot in the glass chapel. After the wedding, we took formal pictures inside and then they took a ton of pictures of Rod and I on the chapel grounds. Then we headed to a park to take more pictures. Then we headed to the reception. The reception site was goregous. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I felt a little rushed only because the videographer had to leave at 3, but I still had an amazing time. We didn't get around to all the tables and I do feel bad about that, but I hope they know we were so glad to have them there. Our buffet was beautiful and the food was excellent. The cake was excellent to. Our DJ was ok. There were a few minor things that I would have liked changed, but no one noticed them but me. We even had a fire boat salute during the reception. All in all it was a fantastic day. After the reception we headed to the cemetary and put flowers from the wedding at my grandfather's grave and my great grandmother and great grandfather's grave. Then we headed to the hotel to check in. After we checked in and got situated we went back to my grandmother's to hang out with everyone. On Sunday we had a brunch in the morning. Many of our friends had headed home, but most of our family was there. It was nice to spend time with the family and open our gifts. Then later that day we took back the tuxes, spent some time with our friends and just relaxed. On Monday, we headed on our honeymoon. That story to come later :)

Grad school done for the summer

I am such an awful blogger. I enjoy reading everyones blogs yet I never spend the time to update mine! Sorry. I'm going to try to remember things that have happened in the past several weeks but I'm not sure I'll remember everything.

Grad school has ended for the summer for me. We found out a few days before our first summer session class was supposed to start that it had been canceled. I was really mad at the time, but then I decided it was a blessing in disguise. I had the opportunity to take the class that we need to take next year during summer, but I decided to just relax and finish up last minute wedding stuff instead of being stressed out. I am really enjoying not taking a class right now. They are offering the class that was canceled during the second summer session now, but obviously I wont be here to take it. Hopefully I will be able to get a waiver to take my practicum without that class and then make it up next summer session.

I've been so busy I haven't even posted

I am such an awful blogger. I love being updated and reading everyone elses blogs but I never spend the time to update mine. Sorry! I don't even know if I can remember everything that has happened since I last posted, but I'll try.

Grad school has ended for the summer for me. I planned on taking a class during the first summer session, but that class got canceled. I had the opportunity to take the class we need for next year, but I just decided to spend the last few weeks finishing up little details before the wedding. I know I probably should have taken the class, but I am really enjoying not having to go to class two nights a week. The class the was canceled is now being offered during the second summer session for all the students but obviously I will not be in town so I hope to get a waiver to be able to do my practicum without the class. I will then make up the class next summer.

It is now less than 6 weeks till the wedding. WOW. I know Rod just wants it to be over with, but I hope he knows how much love I put into creating a beautiful and special day for us. (I don't remember if I put this in the last post, so I'll just repeat myself if I did) We bought shot glasses for our wedding favor. I wanted them to get them with a satin etch because I didn't really want to choose a color. The place we ordered them from said we should do a dark color. My mom and I talked about it a lot and we ended up going with the satin etch like we had originally wanted. I think they came out great. You can read everything and it doesn't stand out too much! We had them shipped to California, but my dad travels there every other week normally so he stopped by my grandparents' house and picked up a shot glass to bring back to me:) I ordered our unity candle last week. Unity candles are expensive. I really liked a very simple one online and it was $45. I ended up finding one on ebay that a lady makes for you and puts a picture of you on it and any saying you want. You could bid starting at 19.95 or you could buy now at 24.95. Well I figured I should bid first because even if I lost she had other auctions I could buy from or bid on. I won the bid so I ended up paying $34 with shipping. My grandmother told me it arrived yesterday and it looks nice. I also bought another part of Rod's wedding gift and it was shipped to my grandparents house. Then I bought lingerie for my honeymoon. All of you who know me know I'm not the smallest person so when it comes to lingerie, I wasn't sure I would want anything. I figured I had to buy something since it is my honeymoon. I actually got Rod's opinion on something. So it's not a surprise, but I think I will be getting lingerie for my bachelorette party. If not, it's ok because I do have something. I was told I needed to have something white for me wedding night which is the only thing I don't have. My mom and I bought lingerie for underneath my dress, so does that count? The other thing I recently bought was blue christmas lights for my grandmother's deck. She has this beautiful backyard and deck overlooking the LA harbor. We are having coffee and desserts after the rehearsal dinner on Thursday night there and we are also having an after party after the wedding there. My grandmother wanted to put blue lights on her deck because blue is the main color in our wedding. I thought that was really cute so I bought her blue lights to string on the deck. I got my dress bustled and picked it up yesterday. It is going to bustle really pretty. Now I just need to decide how I'm going to do my hair. Oh yeah and hope my dress fits on the wedding day. It can zip up right now, but it pushes my boobs up to my chin.

I'm trying to be really good about eating but its hard. I'm thinking of joining Weight Watchers online. It calculates all your points for you. I don't want to spend a whole lot more money, but I think this might be good for me. I just trying to make sure I would do it before I spend the money on it. Someone I work with started it on Monday and lost 3 pounds by the end of the week. She's not really big either so I should be able to lose some weight quickly. I just don't know. Once the wedding is over I'm going to try to get serious about losing weight. It's so hard when I'm in class so much and when I get home I don't feel like cooking. I guess I'm just lazy. I don't feel like doing anything when I get home. That's not only bad for eating but cleaning as well. Our apartment always looks bad.

School is out in 5 days. Actually I have to go back the next Monday, but that's only 6 days. Then I leave for California the Thursday of the next week. Once school is out I plan on cleaning up our apartment and putting things away and getting rid of things I don't need. Collecting things to use later on is one of my weaknesses. I got it from my mother who got it from her mother. I wish I didn't get that gene. It's awful. I keep old school work and papers. I should just get rid of undergradute stuff. I know I'm not going to look back at it. It's just hard to get rid of it because I think I might need it later on down the line, but really I never look in those boxes.

So I might have missed a few things along the way, but this has been my life. Next weekend is a neighborhood BBQ at my parents so Rod and I are going there and then Sunday is father's day. Hope everyone is doing well. Summer is pretty much here! Have a great summer!

It's been a very long time

Sorry it has been so long since I posted. I was going to post in the middle of the month, but I just didn't feel like it. I'm still really upset about what happened at Virginia Tech. It is very hard to process something like that. I seemed to lose my sense of security in one instance and this unbelievable fear that someone I knew had been injured immobilized me. I will never understand why someone feels the need to hurt so many innocent people because of the pain he/she is feeling. Unfortunately what happened at Virginia Tech could happen anywhere. We need to enjoy life to the fullest. I have learned to let little things roll over me because you never know when you wont see the people you love again. I hope what happened brings everyone closer to their friends and family and that we all try to be a little nicer to one another.

So since the beginning of April, a lot of things have happened in my life. Rod and I have decided to keep looking for places, but we are ok with where we live. I keep going back and forth, but Rod really likes living where we live. Where we live allows him to not have to drive to work. Rod really does not like driving so I understand. It also is only 15 minutes to my work. I don't want to lengthen his commute or mine and I don't want to make him have to drive, but I would like to own something. We are throwing so much money away in rent. We do live in a nice place and I love being able to walk everywhere, I just wish we could have a dog and I wish our money was going to something that we owned. It's a good thing for us to stay though because then in two years when I have internship if I don't have a payed internship then we can at least afford to live where we live without struggling.

On Saturday April 7th was my Virginia bridal shower. It was so much fun. The games my sister and soon to be sister-in-law planned were great. They did a purse scavenger hunt and my purse won :) Also, they had to guess how old I was in pictures and if it was a twin picture they had to guess which one was me. They also had to address their thank you card envelops that made it very easy for me. I feel bad though because I haven't gotten thank you cards out to 5 people. (Vicky, I'm sorry....it's coming soon I promise!)

Wedding stuff is going fine. I can't believe the wedding is almost here. It's only like 11 weeks away. I don't have too much to do. The most I have to get done is stuff for the reception in VA since it's the weekend after my mom and I get back. I also need to figure out what kind of veil I want my mom to make. We ordered our favors and my grandmother picked up the jordan almonds. I really don't have too much to do. I really need to figure out what I want to do with my hair and what I'm going to have the girls do to theirs. We only have a hair dresser for my hair and my sisters (it's my aunt). Everyone else is going to have to do their own so I'm going to have them do something simple. I think I'm going to have them curl their hair and put it half up and leave half down. I know it is going to be warm, but it shouldn't be too bad. Anyway, I gotta go to lunch. I'll update later. I hope everyone is doing ok. Let me know if you think of small details of weddings that I might forget.

House Hunting

I'm really busy with work, school, and wedding planning and I was crazy enough to add in house hunting....lol. I know I am insane, but it is a good time to buy if we find anything we like. If we don't, oh well and we'll stay where we are. We aren't against living in Pentagon City in an apartment, but it's a lot of money we could be putting toward a mortgage. Yesterday we looked in Alexandria and Springfield. I think we decided we are not going that way. It would be awful for Rod to get to work because of the Springfield mixing bowl. We hit so much traffic yesterday getting there and I just can't imagine what it would be like for rush hour. Today we are going to look in Falls Church. This would be very convient for me and Rod could take the metro. We'll see what we find. I had a lot of fun yesterday, but it was exhausting. We were gone for like 6 hours. We learned a lot about financing and such and then we looked at two houses because one we hated the neighborhood and just drove buy. Rod and I were much more comfortable with Gabe as our realtor than the past guy. Anyway, I'll post once we see the houses today. After house hunting I am going to my parents' house to see what I need to get done for the wedding this week. It's my mom's and my spring break this week from work. She and my dad are going out of town for a couple of days. Then we are definitely going to address wedding invitations. There is other stuff we need to get done, but I don't remember it. That is what today is about. We are going to make a list of everything we need to get done. I know I also have a crap load of school work to get done. Rod also took Tuesday off to spend the day with me :) Yay...this is just going to be a busy week and it is going to fly by quickly. Then next Saturday is my bridal shower :) I am so excited. Hope everyone has a great week and I'll write soon!

Insanely Busy

So we passed the four month mark till the wedding. I have been really busy with work and school, but the wedding is taking up most of my time. Honestly, I feel like if I get a B in one of my classes that I can handle it because wedding planning takes up so much of my time. I found a wedding band I really liked. My mom, Rod's aunt and I went out shopping 3 weeks ago. We went to several jewelry stores and finally we went to Finks. One of my mom's friends had recommended Finks. She said that they would find exactly what I wanted. She was right! They had just gotten in a ring that almost exactly matched my side stones :) I loved it! It was a size 6 so they said they would try to size it up and if not they would order it in my size. Well it was ready the next Sunday, but they called too late and Rod and I had already headed home for the day so I got it last Sunday. Well, when I picked it up it immediately looked funny, but my mom said it was ok. I didn't think so but I was like ok. Then on Monday I kept thinking about and thinking about it. When I got home I looked at it and when they resized the ring they had spread out the diamonds a weird way and I really didn't like it. They claimed to have a 90 day money back guarantee so I decided to press my luck and see what I could do. On Tuesday Rod and I went out to Ashburn for my mom's birthday :) We ran to the mall first so I could take back the ring. They were great. I told them I wasn't happy with the way it turned out and I wanted them to order it for me in my size. They said no problem, returned the ring, ordered me a new one, and when it arrives they will evenly exchange it. I hope it comes in time for my bridal shower so everyone can see it. Right now my focus has been on registering and ordering the shot glasses. I found a design that I like but the clip art on the website is funky and has someone elses name and you can't change it. I need to email them to see if they can change it for me. I still have to order the almonds, order the ring bearer and flower girl gifts, and I have decided to do a seating chart for the wedding so I need to get place cards. I found some that I like, but then I found these really pretty monogram ones so I need to figure out if I can make my own momogram ones. Last weekend my mom and I ordered our toasting glasses, our cake knife and server, and our cake topper with a matching picture frame. I really need to work on our fans because my mom would like to have people attending my bridal shower help cut out the fan pieces. We'll see if I get that done. I'm so busy with everything else and I need to call the church to get some of the information I don't have. We haven't met with the preacher yet either so we aren't even sure the exact program of the wedding. We did pick music when we were at our planning conference in December, but I didn't write anything down. We also got our engagement photos a few weeks ago and we need to decide which ones we are going to get because those need to be ordered soon too. Ahhh way to much to think about. During my work spring break which is in a week, my mom and I are going to be getting the invitations done. That is going to be so much work. We are getting the invitations out 3 months in advance so that we can get back our response cards because I have a lot of people on my B list that I want to be invited. I have also decided to make shirts for my wedding party. I know I'm crazy, but I thought it would be something cute :) I am going to order the shirts tomorrow. I hope they fit everyone. Once they come in, I'll have everyone try them on and if they don't fit I'll take them back. Another thing I need to start figuring out is what I want to do about bouquets. My mom and I are crazy and making them ourselves, but I'm not sure exactly what I want to do. I was thinking I wanted blue in my bouquet, but I'm not sure how I am going to accomplish that unless I find a color similar to my bridesmaids dresses. Their dresses have a purple tint to it. They are beautiful, but most flower blues will not match. Anyone have any ideas? I feel like I am missing little details about my wedding, but I hope not. If you can think of any little details brides overlook please, please, please let me know! Well, I better go. I'm getting up early tomorrow to go to my parents' house. My mom and I are going to go the gym. Then I might take a nap and then I'm going to pick Marissa up. We are going to have lunch and then go to play Bunko.....yay for seeing Marissa tomorrow. I haven't seen her in a few weeks. Anyway I hope all is well with everyone. I'll update everyone when I get another chance. Love you all!

It's been about a month since I last wrote

I've been debating whether I wanted to write. I have been having a difficult time lately. I am really stressed with work, school, and wedding planning. Work, well is just stupid. I like the most of the people I work with, but there is one person I just can not stand. She treats me like I am a kindergartner and repeats herself every five minutes. It's frustrating because I know I am more intelligent than she is. Also, I had being told the same thing over and over when it's the safe f***ing routing day after day. I know how to do my damn job and it's just plain irritating. I like this person outside of talking about anything about work, but she just sucks at managing. I can't wait until June. It's less than 4 months away until the end of work now :)

School is school. I guess I didn't expect grad school to be easy, but I thought I would feel a little more confident about myself. This semester is really hard for me because I am taking one class online. I hate online classes. I'm am not an organized person, I wish I was and I have tried to be, but it's just not me. Trying to keep up with an online class sucks. My other class has a lot of work and I started out way behind. I didn't get my book for the class until 3 weeks after it started. I still have a lot of reading to catch up on. I just have never felt caught up. Also my class on Wednesday night called Counseling Diverse Populations has had me explore my heritage and culture. It's interesting but has made me think a lot about my family. We're not really as close to my dad's side of the family. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing them and spending time with them, but I am so much closer to my cousins on my mom's side. It was really sad when my grandfather died, but my cousins were there for me. It's amazing the connection we all have. It is really special. When we are all together it is like we are siblings. If I ever needed anything I know they are there for me. My oldest cousin and my youngest cousin are both only children so I hope they feel the same way I do.

The wedding planning is ok. I feel really stressed out right now. I have so much to do with school that I don't have time to think about the wedding. I think I watch way too much tv and it takes away time to do wedding planning. Last weekend Rod and I went to lok at wedding bands. I'm not sure what I want yet. Nothing really matches my band, but I have found a couple that I like. Rod doesn't really want a wedding band, but I really want him to have one. I don't know why it is so important to me, but I wish he understood how I feel about it. I know he doesn't like jewelry and I feel bad because I feel like I'm forcing him to do something he hates, but at the same time I feel like it represents our relationship and he should wear his ring to show that he is married to me. I guess we'll work it out eventually. We also made a list of all the things we need to get done and I feel like it's never ending. I know I have a lot done, but all the little things add up. Now that we're under 5 months I don't feel like I have enough time. I did find a cool way to do my programs though. I want to make fans because it is unique and it may get hot in the glass chapel. Here's the link to what they are going to look like http://www.weddingannouncer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81143&postcount=2. They are going to be a lot of work, but I think they are going to be very neat. I have so much other little things to do as well. The other big thing that I need to get done is order the bridesmaids dresses. Hopefully I'll get that done before the end of the month. I have been working on my thank-you cards from my bridal shower in December (I know I'm way behind, but it's better late than never) and I was going through my address cards for the wedding and I picked up my mom's parents card and it still said Mr. and Mrs. James Trani. That made me really sad. Then my mom and I were working on the guest list and we had to delete my grandfather's name from the guest list :'( That made me cry. I loved my grandfather so much and I really miss him. I'm not sad all the time, but when I think about my wedding I get really sad. I know he is going to be there with me, I just wish he would be there dancing with me.

My busy life has kept me from keeping in touch with some of my best friends. I hadn't seen a lot of my friends in a long time. It sucks, but at the same time I'm not the only one in the relationship. I feel bad because I feel like I've neglected them, but I feel they have neglected me too. One of my best friends has a new boyfriend so she is really busy with him now seeing him everyday. Unfortunately when relationships come friends are second. I've tried not to be that way and I think I've done a good job, but other friends of mine that's not the case. They need to learn to balance their lives, but they feel like they need to spend as much time with the new person as possible because that's what relationships are about, but they aren't. Anyway, enough of my preaching. Next weekend Rod and I are going to go with some of our friends to look at puppies. Then I think I'm going to see some of my best girlfriends from high school. Also one of my best guy friends (we share the same birthday) is coming home for spring break so I am going to see him too :) I can't wait for next weekend to come. Unfortunately the week hasn't even begun. Have a great week everyone and hopefully I'll update soon.

A little less than 6 months till the wedding

Ok, I am going to start off with some sad news. My grandfather passed away on 1/10/07. My mom and I flew out two Saturdays ago and got home last Saturday. It was nice to spend time with my family and remember the wonderful things about my grandfather. My mom spent a lot of time scanning in pictures of my grandfather through all walks of his life and made this huge display of all these pictures. It was displayed at the visitation and the funeral. It was beautiful. My cousins and my sister and brother and I did a eulogy at his vigil service. We also sang some silly songs my grandpa taught us and the all the girls sang "I will Remember You". It was very nice. During the mass was when I got the saddest. My cousins and my sister and I sang at the mass too. At the burial site I was not that sad, because I did not look like my grandfather in the casket. A ton of people came back to my grandparents' house and it was nice to hear all the stories about my grandfather. I am much sadder now that I am home with out a whole lot of family around. I am sad I wont get to see him again and that he wont be able to dance at my wedding. I know as my wedding gets closer I am going to be more sad. I wanted to dance with him at my wedding like my cousin and my sister did. I am sad that I am never going to see him smile again or hear him laugh at himself. I am sad that my grandmother is alone now. I know that my grandfather is watching over us and he is still apart of us through all of our wonderful memories, but we are still very sad. Vicki said, "at least you know he'll be at your wedding and not in a hospital bed" (something to that effect. That was so special because she is so right. He will be there with me at my wedding and watching me and smiling.

Ok on to happier news. I ordered my dress in January because I noticed that it was no longer online. I thought that they were getting rid of the dress so I went to the store that night and ordered it. It came in in less than 10 days. Then I bought my shoes when I picked up my dress. They are so cute. I went to the David's Bridal on Tuesday of this week and picked up the bow for my flower girl's dress so I could have the color of the dresses we are going to order for the bridesmaids. Then Rod and I went to Afterhours that night to pick out the color of groomsmens tuxes so that we could match it to the bow. I hope everything looks ok since they did not actually have a full vest of the color we picked. I can not believe the wedding is less than 6 months away now. It is coming up so quickly. I know it is going to be here before we know it. I still have to order the favors. My mom and I need to sit down and figure out what we are going to do for our reception in VA. Also I need to start thinking of addressing the invitations. I suppose I should finish my thank you cards from my surprise bridal shower over Christmas first. I have a lot of stuff done, I just have a lot of stuff left to do. Luckily, my mom and I have the same spring break from work so I am sure that will be spent doing stuff for the reception here. I need to get together with my bridesmaids so we can pick out which dress they want and order that soon in case they need to get any thing altered. I guess the best thing would be to plan out everything I need to get done and then start figuring out a timeline.

School started two weeks ago. I wasn't in town for the first class because of my grandfather's funeral. This semester is going to be a lot of work, especially since one class is an online class. I hate online classes because I am not that motivated to get work done. Plus, when I have questions, I like getting to talk to my professor face to face. We can go online to have live office hours with our professor but I think that is going to be weird. Unfortunately this class is a research class and I think it is going to kick my butt. Hopefully I can do well and get an A. That is what I always strive for. My other class is counseling culturally diverse populations. This class is going to be very interesting but a lot of work. I ordered my book online, so I hope it comes soon because I am like a few hundreds pages behind.

So this is my life right now. I keep busy with school, work, wedding planning and spending time with my family and friends. I am still grieving the loss of my grandfather as well. Please continue to keep me and my family in your thoughts and prayers as we begin to heal. Thank you all!

Uncertainty

I know it has been awhile since I have posted, but I just haven't felt like talking about what has been going on with me or the uncertainty with my grandfather. Rod and I spent Christmas Eve with my father and his Aunt. We got a lot of great Christmas gifts :) Then on Christmas day Rod and I flew to California to visit my family and get some wedding stuff done. It was a bittersweet trip because my grandfather was in the hospital. I feel like I did not spend enough time with him in the hospital because I had a lot of stuff I needed to get done for the wedding. Anyway, Rod's mom arrived on the 26th. We got to spend a lot of time with her cute doggies. On the 27th, we took Rod's mom to the chapel, then down to our reception site, then we went to get our engagement photos taken. We were going to take them outside, but it was very windy that day (gusts of wind 70 mph) so we decided to take them in his studio. I was not a fan of the first set of pictures he took, but the second set when Rod and I were lying down and doing relaxed poses were AWESOME! I can't wait to get the proofs so we can pick one. While we were there, our photographer planned out the timing for the whole wedding day such as when we will toast, eat, dance to certain music. It was awesome because it is one less thing I have to think about. Then that night, we were going out to dinner with one of my aunts at the Mexican restaurant I had considered having our rehearsal dinner at. We headed down there and to my shock, my aunts had planned a surprise bridal shower for me. It was so much fun! Rod got to stay, and everyone enjoyed getting to meet him. My little 7 year old cousin made wine charms for everyone. It was just so cute! Rod and I got a lot of things from this shower including some of our china:) When we got back to my grandparents' house that night we had sample cakes waiting for us to try. We decided we are going to have one layer as a marble cake with chocolate filling, another layer as a chocolate cake with mocha filling, and the third layer as a chiffon cake with lemon filling. On the 28th, Rod's mom left. Before she left, we decided to book the Mexican restaurant for our rehearsal dinner. We were going to do it at my grandparents house, but when we thought about if we had to rent tables and chairs and hire a couple of people to help serve we decided it would be just as cheap and less stressful to have it at the restaurant. We decided to have dessert, drinks, and coffee back at my grandparents house after the rehearsal dinner. After Rod's mom left, Rod and I met with a wedding planner at the chapel. She was awesome and had some great ideas. While we were there we picked out all our music for the chapel. I am excited because we have so much done. Then after our planning meeting we went to dinner at our reception site so Rod could taste their food. It was really good and we got some ideas of other things we needed to do. Now through this all we had been visiting my grandfather in the hospital periodically. On the 29th we decided to put a feeding tube in my grandfather and that caused a scare because coming out of the anesthesia he went into respiratory distress. Many of us were at the hospital waiting room crying. He came out of it OK, but he wasn't the same. He wouldn't open his eyes, he was not very responsive, and he was very angry. I tried to spend a lot of time with him. That night, one of my aunts from my dad's side of the family took Rod and I to dinner at the brewery. It was awesome and we had a lot of fun. Then on the 30th, Rod, my mom, and I went down to my aunt's house to look for some decorations for the wedding reception which we found and they are going to be gorgeous and then we went to see my cousin and her husband's new condo. It is beautiful. I told Rod I want our own place now. I want to be able to do whatever I want to it, but it's not really possible for us right now since we don't know if I am going to be paid for my internship in a year and a half. Then on New Year's Eve we did not do a whole lot. I remember spending some time with my grandfather and we ate Chinese food, but I don't remember what Rod and I did during the day. On New Years Day we went and said goodbye to my grandfather and then we flew home. It was really hard for me to say goodbye because I don't think I am going to see him again. I never expected that something would happen to him. I expected him to be at my wedding and to dance with me (even though he was in a walker, he got up at my cousin's wedding and my sister's wedding and danced with them). I know if he is not there that Rod and I will do something to tribute him and we will also go to take a picture at the cemetery in our wedding clothes, but it's still really hard. Anyway, we got back at 12a.m on the 2nd, and then we had to get our bags, go back to my parents' house, transfer everything to our car, pack our Christmas gifts in our car, and head home. We did not get home until 2 a.m and I had to be up at 5:45. It sucked. Rod hadn't taken the 2nd off either, but the federal government was closed because of the death of President Ford. Basically this week has been catching up on sleep and trying to pick up our apartment. Also, our one friend had her 2nd baby on the 3rd. We are so excited for her and her family:) Hopefully we'll get down to visit in a month or two. Yesterday, I went to my parents' house and celebrated Christmas with my mom and my dad because my mom wasn't home for Christmas. It was nice to get to spend time with my mom and just be there to support her as she goes through this difficult time. Today we are going to run some errands and I am hopefully going to get all my crap cleaned up so we can vacuum. I'm not sure what exactly is going on with my grandfather, but I think the decision was to take out his feeding tube and bring him home to let him pass at home. Please continue to keep my grandfather and my family in your thoughts and prayers and we try to get through this difficult time. I will update again hopefully soon.